An Incomplete Dib
by tere moto the sentry
Summary: Some tragedies can make you stronger inside...


**Author's Note:** Hello again, I hope y'all enjoy this Dib-centered fic. I'm a Dib fan by the way. I'm very interested in seeing the reviews on this one. It's rated T for character death and some very emotional grieving. But the ending is emotional in a good way. Also, this is in Dib's point of view.

**Disclaimer:** Jhonen Vasquez and Nickelodeon Studios own everything related to "Invader ZIM" except the name "Professor Plasma" (I made that name up).

An Incomplete Dib

I was standing alone on the sidewalk, watching the cars go by. Occasionally, a couple of my classmates would pass, Zita, or Torque, and whisper to a fellow student and giggle. I don't need to guess what they're saying. That look I've come to know, it's enough to decide. Ms. Bitters said she had given the news last I saw her, and she seemed almost...happy to have shared it with the class-it was a doomy sort of thing, I suppose, the kind of thing she loved more than anything else. The whole class, I was happy to discover, had heard the reason I was in for a prolonged absence. I hoped then those who had mistreated me over the years would take back everything they had said and done to me. But to my dismay, they only laughed at me more, every chance they got. As if I didn't have it bad enough...

Since _it_ happened to Dad and Gaz years ago-okay, it only felt like years. It was only somewhere around either a week or three, I don't know which; it's hard for me to keep track of time in this mindset-anyway, since _it_ happened, I've felt more alone now than ever. About everyone I meet has seen me as more of a face in the crowd. And the adoption agency we have in this city was not supportive at all. They made it clear from the first day I met them that they saw me as just another orphan, as just another mouth to feed, as just another-dare I say it-_stray_ to find a home for. I thought that the fact that I was used to being unnoticed and figuratively invisible would alleviate that pain a little, but it just made it more unbearable.

I admitted to myself that I had become a wreck, living only for the next day in hopes it would be better than the last. I knew I couldn't live like that forever, but what to do right now?

'Where was I going to be sent to?' was another constant concern. The orphanage I would go to-or maybe, if I was lucky-a new family-would they understand? Would they sympathize with me? And would this agency go against rules and not bother with a background check first?

My main focus these past few days had been on denial. I wanted to slip into that safe little haven of pretending everything was okay and life would remain as it was. Gaz, gone for good? Please. She's in her room. Don't you hear that excessive electronic noise from her Game Slave 2? And Dad's just at the studio working late filming another episode of "Probing the Membrane of Science." Yes, I wanted to curl up in denial and not come out until I was ready to face the truth.

Or never come out at all.

I wanted, just for a moment, to stop feeling. Lose touch with reality for a minute. I didn't want reality. Not if reality took Dad and Gaz away. Not if reality left me without the two people who came closest to my friends. Not if reality hurt so much. I now had no family, with Mom having suffered a fatal lab accident while testing chemical formulas with Dad years ago, and me not even knowing my extended family, they never wanted to keep in touch. That made for some sad family reunions in the past. Yes, my mother, Professor Plasma, had also been a renowned scientist like Professor Membrane. She'd also had her own show called "Poking the Plasma of Science". But now, with her gone, I was left with a father who never had time for his children, and a hermit sister who lived merely for videogames and pizza. But they had been my family. And now they were gone, too. All because of a certain egocentric Irken...

I was now convinced that there _was_ a God. And I prayed to that God every night. There had to be a reason I was suffering like this, and the idea that someone was listening as I screamed out my feelings on the inside was very comforting.

I wanted that alien's head. _He_ did this to Dad. _He_ did this to Gaz. _He_ did this to- me. I wanted to fly at him, beat him to a pulp until he begged for his life, for mercy.

And would I give it to him then?

That last thought terrified me. The idea that I would destroy him unmercifully gave me a sinking feeling, made me nauseous. I clutched my stomach and looking up, scanned the sidewalk in the midday light to find somewhere to sit. Finally spotting a bench, I dragged my feet towards it and sat down. As furious as I was with Zim, I knew deep inside I would never find it in my heart to kill him. It was human compassion, and destroying him would make me just as bad as him. I closed my eyes in hopes I would fall asleep and wake up when all the pain and shock was over.

I could still hear Zim cackling and raising his fists in victory, proclaiming to the world his greatness ("Victory and doom! I am Zim!"). Those unfeeling magenta colored, insect-like eyes burning down on me, half-closed in an ear to ear grin-or a grin stretching to where human ears would be-as he basked in the fact he had bested me, destroyed the "pitiful Dib-human" from the inside.

Wait. That sounded like his voice. Had I imagined or _heard_ him say, "pitiful Dib-human"? Then it came again.

_"Pitiful Dib-human. How you wallow in your sorrow like a...sorrow wallower in-er!" _

I opened my eyes to see the main source of my current hardships, a self-gratified smile on his face, a wig concealing his antenna, the cruel look in his eyes still showing through the facade of the blue-eyed contacts. Zim was standing in front of me at eye level, though it felt like he was looking down at me-looking down _on_ me. GIR, his child-like robotic assistant, was rolling back and forth on the sidewalk in a blissful unawareness of the world around him. No one ever found it unusual that the color of GIR's dog suit disguise was green, or that Zim had a "skin condition" making his skin green, that was something that had fueled my frustration further in my many fruitless attempts at proving Zim was an alien bent on enslaving the human race.

"I have won, filthy Dib-scummy human. You have lost. Do your confining human emotions drive you mad? You should turn your allegiance over to me now and I shall make you one of my highest-ranking officers. For with your pathetic emotions weighing you down, there is now no one to stop me from taking over this toxic waste dump you call your home planet! Hah! Zim wins! Dib loses!"

I shakily but determinedly stood up. "_No_. I _won't_ join you, and I have _not_ lost. I'm still here-I'm still _alive_, aren't I?"

Zim's laughter was cut short. "Ah, yes," he said, raising an eyebrow, "I guess we will have to correct that minor setback." He glanced around at the people bustling back and forth down the sidewalk. "Not _here_," he said quietly, "not _now_, but soon." I gave him a glare that I hoped made me look more confident than I felt.

"Well," Zim said, "I guess you won't become an officer of mine after all, eh? Ah, such a shame. Come, GIR!" He tugged on the leash that made his SIR unit more fully resemble a dog, and that kept GIR from running off, and GIR, who was in the motion of hiking his leg on a nearby fire hydrant, whimpered at the denial of performing his metal bladder's functions and followed his master.

"Wait till we get home, GIR," Zim whispered to him, "You'll stain the suit."

They walked away down the sidewalk, towards their home base, and then I was alone.

Or so I thought at the time.

Zim's most recent plot had been quite easy to figure out: strike a blow that hurt me inside, and in the middle of my grieving state, the task of relocating to a new home, and the settling of my dad's and Gaz's remaining belongings, he figured he'd have a clear shot at Earth's conquest. But that wasn't about to happen, no, I would _not_ be beaten like that. I was Dib the Immovable, the Unbendable, and I wouldn't be brought to my knees by my enemy. And I made the mistake of thinking that the best way to start was not to cry. I felt it would give him the satisfaction even when he wasn't around to see it.

I refused to break into sobbing; I fought back the tears and gently rocked myself back and forth hoping it would rid me of the urge. I sat back down in the bench and dropped my head onto my lap, pulling my favorite trench coat a little closer around me and closing my eyes again.

'_Pretend everything's fine and it will be_,' I lied to myself, '_Breathe in and out, and it will all be just a distant dream_.' _'Pretend nothing's wrong and everything will be fine...'_

_'Pretend nothing's wrong and you'll be living a lie.'_

_That_ thought came from nowhere-no, wait-it came from my...my conscience. _Living a lie...?_

Suddenly, I realized something. My weakness wasn't _having_ emotions, but Zim's weakness was being _without_ emotions. Victories wouldn't mean as much if he was lonely, and in likelihood, if he cared about no one else, he wouldn't be motivated enough to do something as big as conquering the world. And true courage _wasn't_ the will to bottle up emotions, _but the will to express them_. So I let the tears flow. Tears for the loss of the two people I cared about most in this world, tears for the rough road I faced ahead, tears from my frustration with Zim. I would find a way to stop him, and now I knew another of his weaknesses, and I was stronger.

But then I thought back to that fateful day. I didn't subconsciously repress it, but rather, strangely enough, I remembered it well for a tragic memory. Maybe I wanted to remember it, to motivate me further to foil Zim's plans.

_It was a dark and cloudy Friday, and the last thing I expected was for Zim to pay me a visit, since I would have expected he would be cautious of a possible rain later that evening. Rain burned an Irken like acid, so Zim probably watched the weather, but I kept on my toes in case he decided to venture to my house anyway. I was on my bed with a book on crypto zoology, the study of animals and creatures unknown and referred to as "monsters". There was a brand new can of Poop cola on my nightstand. I was relaxed, my boots kicked off and my trench coat resting on the other end of the bed. Though I was always alert in case of a Zim plot, another part of my mind could just chill out with the thought of a weekend ahead and a new episode of "Mysterious Mysteries" on later that night. I finished the book after about an hour and then took a nap until Gaz barged into my room and threw an empty Cherry Poop can at my head, then demanded that I get up and get ready to go to Bloaty's Pizza Hog. _

_"And you better not get captured by Zim again and make me save your hide just so we can leave," she told me with her usual fire-breathing tone. I nodded and mumbled something to the effect of "Coming," and then, satisfied, my sister stalked out of my room. I threw my coat and boots on and ran a comb through my scythe-like hair before going downstairs to the back porch. My father, the great Professor Membrane, was waiting at the door with a brown trench coat in place of his usual lab coat. Gaz stood beside him wearing her oversized buckled boots and her raincoat and muttered "About time," though I hadn't taken that long._

_"Well, we're off, kids," Dad said as he fished his keys from his pocket to ready them for the car. He was about to open the back door when- _

_Boom! _

_Crash!_

_"Aahh! " _

_It came out of nowhere. The next thing I knew, everything was black, and I had a terribly throbbing head. I started to wonder why I couldn't see, and it took me a moment to recover from the shock enough to realize my eyes were closed. I slowly opened them and looked around. A hairline crack ran through one lens of my glasses, and the other lens was so cracked I could barely see through it. Through the good lens I saw tree branches all around me, and a ways below me were scraps of wood and glass and furniture littering a once perfect lawn. I blinked, and looked at the nearby tree branches, and I realized I wasn't on the ground. I had waked up in a tree. I looked down and examined myself for visible injury, and when all seemed fine, I decided to try getting down. I lifted my left arm-_

_"Aahh!"_

_Pain shot up the arm and coursed throughout my chest. Nothing seemed wrong on the outside, but my arm must have been fractured and with the sudden shock of whatever just happened, I hadn't felt the pain until I tried to move it. What had just happened? I looked down at the wreckage again and noticed familiar parts of it. That is-that was-my house. Most likely it was Zim's doing. Wrecking my house when we were about to have a family outing-Dad! Gaz! Where were they? I scanned the wreckage again, but my father and sister were nowhere to be found. I had to get down from the tree. I tried moving my right arm, which was sore, but not nearly as badly hurt as the other, and then tried my legs, which were shaky and aching, and I found an ankle was twisted fairly badly. I eased down from the branches, I was happy to know I wasn't too high up, and slowly took it foothold by foothold. But my foot slipped once, and I came crashing down about a foot and a half to the ground. I was now in such pain that I wanted to lie there writhing for a while, but I had to find Dad and Gaz. I steadied myself on the tree trunk and got up wincing, then stumbled forward to the rubble, carefully making sure I didn't step anywhere where a live wire could be hidden. Thankfully, we had a newer home built without asbestos, but there was still stuff flying in the air, I held my shirt over my mouth and nose, and I didn't have to go too far calling for Dad and Gaz before I heard Gaz's unmistakable voice._

_"Diiiiiiib! Over here!"_

_"Gaz!" I whirled around to see my sister trapped under the overturned couch and looking too weakened to get out. I ran to her, and through adrenaline, lifted the sofa off of her. I saw the shadow of a smile on Gaz's beaten face, and she lifted a trembling arm and pointed to her left._

_"Dad's over there. I don't know if he's breathing."_

_I jerked my attention to Gaz's indicated direction and saw the bruised and unmoving mess that was my dad. I hurried to him and knelt by his side. _

_"D-Dad?" I tapped him as gently as I could, not trying to move him in his condition. I soon noticed that his chest heaved in and out slowly, and short-lived relief washed over me. One lens of his goggles was broken out, and the exposed eye fluttered open._

_"Son?" he asked almost in a hushed whisper._

_"Yes, Dad." _

_"My cell phone," he gestured with the visible eye to his coat pocket. I nodded and reached over into the pocket, pulled out the phone, and hastily dialed 911. _

_"Hello, 911 emergency hotline. What is your emergency?" _

_"M-my name is Dib. Just Dib. I live on 13 Dead End Drive, and my house has just been blown up completely. I need an ambulance urgently for my dad and my sister and I have to go to the hospital, too." _

_"We will send one right away. Try to hold on."_

_"Thank you."_

_I hung up, glad that the cell phone hadn't stopped functioning. I looked back at Dad and looked him up and down. There were several small cuts in the side of his head, and both his arms lay helplessly by his side._

_"I hope they can still save Gaz," he whispered in a cracked voice._

_"Don't talk," I said, "you need your strength. And especially don't talk like that. You'll make it. I'll get help from the neighbors."_

_"Get help for Gaz and yourself," he said, "I'm...shutting down, Dib...I feel it." _

_"...No..." _

_"Listen, son," he said as the eye that was showing filled with tears, "you'll make a great paranormal investigator someday. I love you. And tell Gaz I love her too and she'll make a great...whatever she does someday." _

_And with that the eye lost its focus on me, and his chest lay still._

_Nearly blinded by burning tears I turned away from him, no longer wanting to see him like that, and redirected my attention to Gaz. I stared into her eyes then made several futile attempts to call for the neighbor's help. I didn't want to leave her, and I could tell she didn't want me to. But maybe it was for the best. I started to turn and run next door, but Gaz softly called out to me._

_"Dib...don't go."_

_"I have to get you help, Gaz." _

_"I don't want you to leave. And I'm not gonna live either. Just please stay..."_

_As much as I shook my head to deny it, Gaz was probably right. Her body had been crushed hopelessly by the couch being thrown on top of her at full force. Her spine bent at an odd angle. And as I looked around, the neighbors had none of their usual cars parked in the driveway. Against my better judgment, I let my shoulders drop and I shuffled over to my broken older sister. I couldn't stand waiting for the ambulance, and I tried to fight off the thought. I dropped to my knees in front of Gaz and looked her in the eyes._

_"Dad says he loves you," I remembered to give her the message, "and he wanted you to...follow your dreams." She nodded slightly, her eyes a bit more open than their usual squint. _

_"And I love you, Gaz."_

_"I know," she said quietly, "I never acted like much of a sibling to you, did I?"_

_"It's okay," I felt the hot tears welling up again, "don't worry about that now. You were a good sister, all in all." I bit my lip. It pained me further to say "were". But she did care about me. When I was really sick with some sort of Irken disease Zim had managed to infect me with and Dad would say to "keep my chin up" and he'd get ready for work anyway, hadn't Gaz always volunteered to stay home with me? Sure, she had her own way of explaining it off to me ("I don't need to go to the skool. What could that Mr. Elliot teach me that I don't already know?") And towards the afternoon, she'd make smoothies for herself and me. When I thanked her, she'd say, "Just shut up and drink it. I understand that you need fluids or you'll get sicker and might have to go to the hospital." When I smiled at her for her concern, she quickly added, "And-and then I'll have no one to torture." I'd nod, but if she didn't find that satisfactory enough, she'd scowl and say, "Wipe the smile off or I'll rip it off." _

_The whole memory of those times made me smile a little despite the situation, and Gaz, as if reading my mind and sharing the same memory, smiled too._

_"No matter what I've ever said to you, Dib," she said softly, "I've always loved you."_

_The condition of Gaz's body reminded me of an old cartoon in which a horribly mangled character only had to wait a few camera shots until they were healed and as good as new. But Gaz couldn't just wait for animation to fix her. I stared and wished I could take out a pencil and redraw her body the way it was, only this time, I'd make that smile stay there. _

_"I know you always did," I softly started sobbing as I took a hand that she weakly held up to me, "I always loved you too. I knew you weren't really like how you seemed on the outside."_

_"I'm sorry for everything I ever said or did to you."_

_"That's all behind us now," I told her._

_Gaz paused for a moment. "Dib?"_

_"Yeah?"_

_"You've always been a strong person; no matter what you've been through," her eyes opened completely and she and I shared a moment of the deepest sibling understanding, "keep trying. Don't ever let life get the best of you, and don't let Zim either."_

_I nodded, tears rolling down my cheeks, and I saw Gaz's eyes get a little wet. Then the determined vibrancy in her eyes faded, and the hand that so powerfully grasped mine fell limp._

_It was about that time that the ambulance arrived, but no shock treatment was able to return Dad and Gaz to where they still appeared to be. I was quiet the entire way to the hospital, and my arm and ankle were bandaged and I was put in a single room. Later that evening a nurse informed me of a visitor who came to see me. I felt a little better and was eager for whoever it was until he came in._

_"I heard of your tragic deaths in the family," Zim sounded very sympathetic, but an evil grin was plastered to his face as he removed his contacts after he was certain we were alone. Then he pulled the wig off, and my arch nemesis' true self stood before me. _

_"By any chance did you have anything to do with this?" I asked through gritted teeth, my good arm ending in a clenched fist. _

_"Some people will put 'kick me' signs on your back when you're not looking," Zim piled the wig and contacts together and tossed them to GIR as his dog-suited, not-so-evil "minion" came up from behind him. "I go for slow-detonating time bombs when it comes to my enemy. Except I hid it in your backpack when you set it down. You're lucky the Tallest would only give me one." I wasn't sure if he was hiding the fact he had more, or was just stupid enough to tell me that. _

_"Did you do that to Dibby?" GIR pointed at my bandages._

_"Yes, GIR," Zim said impatiently, "you remember how I spent four hours bragging about my success when we got back to the base?" _

_"Oh, yeah." GIR nodded, unaware of what his master had truly done to me. "I had gots some sammiches and cupcakes to celebrate. That was lotses of fun!"_

_"Yes, GIR, it was very-satisfying," Zim made sure he made eye contact with me when he said "satisfying". _

_"You don't seem surprised that I lived," I pointed out._

_"No, I had brought a force field generator to skool to lock you in a shield so you'd only be injured in the explosion," he explained, "it felt a lot better having you suffer emotionally. Well, I must go," he announced, glancing at the clock and taking his simple but effective (to most other people) disguise from GIR and refitting it on him. He marched proudly to the door with GIR at his heels, spinning around once to face me and declare, "I am Zim!" _

The memory still haunted me almost every night in my dreams. I prayed for something to happen that would help me move on, someone to tell me that it was in the past and there was a way I could carry on without such a heavy burden. I knew it was understandable that I was still hurting, but I was just tired of hurting so bad.

But just when I neared a breakdown, I suddenly felt some sort of...presence right above me.Something gentle. Something...comforting. I looked up with eyes that felt they were on fire. Hovering over my head were four lightly glowing silhouettes, just _floating_ there. A big one, two ones of the same size, and a small one about my size. Normally I would be frantically searching my person for my camera, but it felt-it felt-just so peaceful to just look at them. And then, like a voice in my head, the largest silhouette spoke.

_You will make it through this, Dib, for you have me, and I have them_.

The voice had no sound, no gender, but though it was silent, it was powerful, surging through me and empowering me. I did not need to ask who the Largest One was.

_We're right behind you, son. _One of the twin figures was the next to speak in my head, but this time the voice was male, and very familiar. I smiled up at the apparition I knew as my dad.

_Don't give up, Dib, we're still here, _a young female voice came from the smallest. Warm and healing tears blurred the appearance of Gaz, and I nodded, grinning, unable to find the words to express all I was feeling. And then the other twin figure next to dad began her own consolation, though I had put two and two together already and decided on her identity.

_We'll always be here_, Professor Plasma told me. My mom, who I had missed for years, had been with me all along.

"Thank you," was all I could utter. The figures nodded, and faded away, though that is almost inaccurate, because they weren't leaving at all.

Dad had always said everything happens for a reason. At the time I had thought it was just another spur-of-the-moment theory he would jot down on a notepad stained with morning coffee and then forget about until he was cleaning out his desk. But now I saw the truth in it, that everything was part of some bigger picture. A good thing came out of each bad thing, perseverance out of failure, willpower and bravery out of tragedy.

_Incomplete? _Never the same again, no. But there had to come a time with every grieving person where they realize that who they're missing would want them to move on. And, professional help or whatever it took, I was willing to start healing. I now had a new God to watch over me, and wherever Dad, Gaz, and even Mom were, they were in a cheering section. I smiled to myself. Zim's plan had backfired. The whole ordeal had made me stronger inside, and now I was more motivated to stop him. For every ending, there was a new beginning.

And soon I would have to break that news to Zim.

The End-or a new beginning...


End file.
